My neighbor said 'you can't fix a house you don't own' and now I'm stuck on buying vs renting.

We were talking about my leaky kitchen faucet last week, and I mentioned I was tired of calling the landlord for every little thing. He just shrugged and said that line. It hit different because I've been saving for a down payment for about 3 years and have around $45k. The pro is building equity and not dealing with a landlord. The con is all the hidden costs and being stuck in one place. Has anyone made this jump recently and regretted it or loved it?

I was reading an old service manual for a 2012 Dell Optiplex and saw that the thermal paste application diagram shows a single pea-sized dot. I've been doing the X pattern for a decade. Which method do you guys actually use on client machines?

I thought my buddy was crazy for paying a guy under the table to fix his deck, but now I'm not so sure.